


Metamorphosis

by orphan_account



Category: Invader Zim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In which you watch a man begin to change into something he didn't believe existed.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Metamorphosis

Professor Membrane had a problem.  
Aliens were real.  
And he was becoming one.

Dib had meant well when he was experimenting with DNA splicing. He had wanted to study Zim's reaction to various poisons and meats, he couldn't have known what was going to happen. Of course not. But it did happen. Of course it did.   
Membrane sat down at the kitchen table that morning, as he always did. He sipped his coffee, as he always did. He reached to move Dib's laptop, as he always did. What didn't normally happen, however, was the prick of a tack. What didn't happen normally was the morphing, the changing, the warping of his DNA.  
That night, Membrane couldn't sleep. The room was too warm. His whole body itched. He went for a glass of water, and it burned his parched throat.   
The next night, it was worse. Even his hair hurt. He could barely move, each agonizing movement sending spasms of pain through his burning, aching bones.   
He tried to think of an explanation, some reason for what was happening. When the antennae began to sprout and his skin began to turn a sickly green, he no longer had any doubts.  
Some nights, nothing would happen. Membrane could pretend it was some horrible dream. The next day, he'd try to sip his morning coffee, as usual. And he'd be burnt. As usual.  
It's difficult to hide a metamorphosis. Eventually, you can no longer deny the new reality you find yourself in. Membrane was hiding under more and more layers of clothing. Wearing makeup and hats. He stole Dib's research, desperate to find some way to reverse the results, to no avail.  
The exquisite agony of reinvention cannot be expressed in any way that you can understand, but you may feel it eventually. In some way or another.  
It was midnight. The house was dark. He lay awake, sweating. Burning. Aching.   
He gasped, or tried to. He choked, or at least. He tried to. Where his lungs had always been there, they simply weren't. He tried to breathe, to make a noise, but there was nothing to make the noise with. Every cell in his body screamed for air, but he wasn't able to draw a breath. He didn't know how long he sat there, breathless, before he suddenly gasped. His breaths were whirring, ragged, clicking.   
He began to cry.  
Or at least.  
He tried to.


	2. Sensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a man begins to panic.

It was another restless night.  
He dreaded night, knowing that the bone twisting demon that haunted him would be back as soon as his head hit the pillow.  
He dreaded morning, knowing that every time he looked in the mirror, he'd be less human.  
The feeling of lungs reshaping like putty was horrible, but worse still were the eyes. Eyelids squeezed shut while his eyes burned and ached. He didn't look into the mirror the next morning.   
The transformation had been getting harder to hide. His hair fell out in clumps. He hadn't eaten in days. Not since he had tried, with disastrous results, to eat something in the morning.  
He avoided his son. He thought that Dib would somehow know, somehow sense his father's dwindling humanity.  
He hardly went outside, his new senses being easily overwhelmed by the smell of the city and the sounds of the people in them.  
He could feel his window closing. He wouldn't be himself much longer.  
He wasn't able to cry anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this! Might add on, might not. (My Tumblr is ahappybell if you want to scream at me!)


End file.
